Flinders University Redefines Lab Interiors, Clinches Design Excellence Award

Flinders University’s Health and Medical Research Building (HMRB) northern façade highlighting the two triple-height winter gardens. Image: Trevor Mein

Flinders University’s Health and Medical Research Building (HMRB) in Bedford Park, South Australia, is a contemporary facility that brings together advanced laboratory environments, thoughtfully designed workspaces, and elements of biophilic design. The building supports a range of health and medical research activities within an adaptable and collaborative setting.

At 22,000 square meters and $280 million AUD (about $183 million USD) in total project cost, the 10-story HMRB represents the first completed building in the Flinders Village innovation precinct. Its interior design, led by Architectus, embodies the next generation of research environments—where functionality, flexibility, and user well-being drive every design decision.

The project team included Hansen Yuncken (builder), Arup and KBR (services engineers), Wallbridge Gilbert Aztec (structure engineer), Resonate (acoustic consultant), Rider Levett Bucknall (cost manager), Oxigen (landscape architect), dsquared Consulting (ESD consultant), Jacobs (laboratory advisory and compliance assistance), Parallax (signage consultant), BuildSurv (building surveyor), and Urps (planning consultant). Architectus served as architect and interior designer.

The Flinders University Health and Medical Research Building was honored with the Excellence in Interior Design prize in the 2025 Design Excellence Awards. Accepting the award at the Lab Design Conference in Denver, CO, in May 2025, Architectus principals Andrew Schunke and Diana Rosenthal shared insights into the project’s design approach and impact with the conference audience. Schunke and Rosenthal, along with their colleague Esther Mavrokokki, Architectus senior associate; Flinders University’s Angela Binns, a senior manager of technical services at the College Medicine & Public Health; and Professor Damien Keating, deputy director of Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, spoke to Lab Design News about the project.

A laboratory interior with purpose and precision

Tissue Culture Laboratory with views to the University campus. Image: Shannon McGrath

With 122 labs—including PC2 and BC2 containment laboratories—spread across dedicated research floors, the HMRB provides Flinders’ scientific community with environments tailored to the specific demands of fields such as Genomics, Mass Spectrometry, Molecular Biosciences, Omics, Neurology, and Bioinformatics. Mavrokokki emphasizes the scale and adaptability of these facilities, noting, “The Health and Medical Research Building (HMRB) comprises 122 labs, excluding support spaces with 900 benches, 100 sink benches, and 250 lineal meters of service spines.”

The labs are supported by a grid-based layout and ceiling-hung service spines, ensuring they can be reconfigured as research needs evolve. Physical Containment Level 2 spaces are distributed throughout the building, and support infrastructure—including a vivarium, insectory, and specialized cold-shell spaces—offers further adaptability. “All labs have been set out on a simple grid serviced by a ghost corridor to allow flexibility from dedicated enclosed labs to open shared labs and back again with minimal intervention,” says Schunke.

This adaptability is mirrored in the careful integration of solo and communal zones. Collaborative winter gardens, write-up spaces, and soft-seating areas give researchers relief from technical environments. “Transparency puts research in view so that passersby can see creativity and science in action,” adds Binns, emphasizing the intentional visual connectivity across program areas.

A glass wall between the boardroom and a PC2 Research Technology Platform offers a direct view into active lab work, creating a visual connection between research and administration. In contrast, the surrounding workspaces feature warm materials like timber and soft furnishings, providing a comfortable counterpoint to the clinical lab environment and offering researchers a welcome change of atmosphere.

“A key part of the design brief was to highlight and celebrate the research and researchers within the building—part of this was to ensure a visual connection from the labs out to the view and other workplace settings, as well as into the laboratories,” says Rosenthal.

Wellness through interior architecture

Winter garden collaboration spaces and circulation stairs. Image: Shannon McGrath

HMRB’s award-winning interior design goes far beyond aesthetics. It harnesses natural light, transparency, and materiality to foster occupant wellbeing—an approach deeply informed by both user feedback and Indigenous culture.

“Best practice in workplace design and biophilic design principles can deliver outstanding benefits for user wellbeing in clinical environments. Designing spaces that encourage collaboration can advance health and medical research outcomes,” Rosenthal says.

“Every level is lined with opportunities for collaboration, including open work zones for workshops, networking functions and socializing; offices and quiet rooms for confidential and focused work; and booths and pods for individuals,” adds Binns. That diversity of space types is visually and spatially connected through expansive glazing and the integration of winter gardens, which double as thermal buffers and indoor-outdoor break areas.

The staircases are more than just circulation elements—they embody HMRB’s human-centered design philosophy. “The building’s defining feature is the interconnecting staircases, which promote staff inter-floor circulation, chance interactions, and health,” says Binns. In a nod to holistic wellness, messages promoting physical and mental health are inscribed into the handrails, reinforcing the interior’s role in supporting daily well-being.

Biophilic design is another pillar of the interior strategy. Floor-to-ceiling windows, green terraces, timber joinery, and organic finishes bring a connection to the natural world throughout the vertical structure. On fair-weather days, the building’s atria convert into lush ‘winter gardens’ through operable louvres, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.

A digital powerhouse in a sustainable envelope

Fly-through of the building. Video: Courtesy of Flinders University

Not only is HMRB beautiful and functional—it’s also smart. The facility is the first medical institute globally to receive a WiredScore Platinum rating for its digital infrastructure. “The building includes backup fiber entry points and multiple riser pathways, allowing redundancy protection and flexibility to support future technologies,” says Mavrokokki. Advanced monitoring systems are wired throughout, supporting air quality management (AQMS), critical equipment tracking (CEMS), and water and energy performance (EWMS).

Sustainability has been built into the project from the start. The building operates on 100 percent renewable electricity, sourced from campus solar panels and wind power from a South Australian farm. Façade glazing rejects 75 percent of solar heat gain, and mechanical systems are supported by natural ventilation strategies through louvres. Water-saving fixtures, low-VOC materials, and an RO reject water reclamation system round out the sustainability toolkit.

The team expects to earn WELL and LEED Gold certifications, recognizing the HMRB’s integration of wellness and environmental standards at every level—from laboratory exhaust systems to the soft furnishings in break areas.

Embedding culture and story in interior space

Yamalaitji ngurikawi wurri (“first blossom acacia seed”) by Aunty Yvonne Koolmatrie and collaborating artist Karl Meyer, hanging in the entry. Image: Shannon McGrath

One of the most distinctive aspects of HMRB’s interior design is its integration of Indigenous cultural narratives, developed in close collaboration with Flinders University’s Senior Kaurna Elder on Campus, Dr. Uncle Lewis Yarlupurka O’Brien, and the Cultural Narrative and Indigenous Art Advisory Panel. “This informed our design concept which embeds a cultural narrative and a strong connection to Country that is reflected in the building’s form and laboratory spaces in meaningful ways,” says Schunke.

Color palettes shift subtly as users move up the building, reflecting the multicolored layers of Rainbow Yarta, a sand dune formation of Kaurna Country. A dramatic suspended sculpture in the entry, Yamalaitji ngurikawi wurri (“first blossom acacia seed”), evokes First Nations medicinal traditions. Timber, stone, and leather finishes within the building echo natural elements of the landscape and sea, reminding researchers daily of their place within a broader continuum of knowledge and care.

Lessons in participation and flexibility

HMRB’s award-winning design is the result of more than 250 stakeholder engagement sessions, including in-depth workshops and a national research tour. “It was only through this consultation that we could accommodate the needs of the current researchers but offer flexibility for future users over the next 50 years,” says Keating.

To communicate proposed interiors and lab functionality, the design team utilized digital tools to allow users to experience and fine-tune their environments in real time. “We used Revit models and virtual reality headsets to immerse the users in their future spaces and continually collaborated with the users through the testing and approval period,” says Schunke.

Even the project’s challenges, such as shifting scope demands for PC2 lab space and pandemic-related material inflation, were met with a commitment to preserve both design intent and researcher needs.

More than just a research building, HMRB sets a new standard for interior laboratory design—where collaboration, adaptability, technology, sustainability, and cultural identity are interwoven into every surface and space. Binns says, “We hope that they’ll recognize the HMRB as an exceptional example of laboratory design that encapsulates contemporary research facility functionality.”

Cover image: Enclosed office and open plan workstations connected to labs. Image: Shannon McGrath